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Also look at anything by Jared Spool and his UIE Engineering company. Worth googling! He writes a newsletter and runs conferences. If you sign up for the former, you'll also get invitations to the latter, but I think it's worth it. Jared is a big advocate of paper prototyping. He's also a very cogent and funny speaker. I've learned a lot from him. IMHO, Jakob's website is a turnoff, but his ideas are good.

Best thing you can do, if possible, is to go on a customer site visit with your tech support people and watch how people actually use your product. Since this seems to be a new product you're working on, try to go to customers who are using a similar existing product. Ask what they like and dislike about the product interface and how they would suggest changing it. DON'T PROMISE TO MAKE THOSE CHANGES, just ask! If necessary, tell them you'll take their advice into consideration in designing new products. Nothing like getting it straight from the horse's mouth, after all!

And my final bit of advice...I often run into engineers who say "Well,
that's the way Microsoft does it, so it must be right." I try to
avoid using Microsoft as an example for anything.

Jenny

On Sep 29, 2009, at 2:14 PM, Leisa Ashbaugh wrote:

> HI -
>
>
>
> I could really use some help, and I'm willing to bet that I am not the
> first among this group to face this problem.
>
>
>
> I work for a start-up software company. We have a brilliant new
> approach
> to airline enterprise resource management (scheduling, revenue
> management and the like). We have a lot of gifted software developers
> working on the 'magic algorithms' that make our software unrivaled by
> competitors. What we don't have is any UI design staff, or the
> budget to
> hire some.
>
>
>
> So....(you can guess where I am going here)...that leaves me as the
> one
> person solely focused on the user experience in UI design. Don't get
> me
> wrong, the devs are all capable and conscientious, they are just have
> their expertise and focus in other areas - as they should.
>
>
>
> I am looking for resources that can help take me beyond my current
> view
> of UI design - which comes from the 'after it's done and I have to
> document it' 'why didn't they do X, Y or Z?' perspective - to a more
> informed 'design from scratch' approach. I would like to able to give
> informed, well-researched onions and answer questions like: what's our
> metaphor? Should we use menu items, buttons or both? Why or why not?
> What about tabs? Rather than defaulting to the "good
> design....ah....I
> know it when I see it" position.
>
>
>
> Sure - I'd love to take the fantastic User-centered Design Certificate
> Program offered at our esteemed UW, but we need to deliver this
> thing in
> 2 months. Yikes.
>
>
>
> I am doing my own Google searching and such, but would greatly
> appreciate experienced suggestions.
>
>
>
> Many Thanks,
>
>
>
> Leisa Ashbaugh
>
> Technical Writer | 425-284-7129
>
> Airline Intelligence Systems | 3500 Carillon Point - Kirkland, WA
> 98033
>
>
>
> When something can be read without great effort, great effort went
> into
> its writing.
>
> ~ Enrique Jardiel Poncela
>
>
>
> One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being
> impossible to misunderstand.
> ~ Quintilian
>
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Free Software Documentation Project Web Cast: Covers developing
> Table of
> Contents, Context IDs, and Index, as well as Doc-To-Help
> 2009 tips, tricks, and best practices.
>http://www.doctohelp.com/SuperPages/Webcasts/
>
> Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
> authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
> once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version
> control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
>
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